INDIANAPOLIS — Just as millions of basketball fans were tuning in to the first full day of the N.C.A.A. tournament on Thursday, Indiana University announced that it had fired its coach, Tom Crean. Just like that — two chunky paragraphs released by a team that wasn’t even in the field — the annual coaching carousel had begun to whirl.
Would the former Hoosiers star Steve Alford, now coaching U.C.L.A., want the job? What about Chris Holtman, just up the road at Butler? Or Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall, who had the good fortune (or misfortune) to be in Indianapolis when the Crean news broke?